


And We'll Work it Out

by ninhursag



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alex Manes Loves Michael Guerin, Anger, Drunken Confessions, Drunkenness, Exhibitionism, F/M, Fix-It, Friendship, Idiots in Love, M/M, Michael Guerin Loves Alex Manes, Multi, Never Have I Ever, Past Abuse, Past Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 13:42:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19975030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninhursag/pseuds/ninhursag
Summary: Maria DeLuca is not going let this mess stand.In which a rousing game of drunken never have I ever fixes at least some things and much is revealed.





	And We'll Work it Out

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline, what timeline?
> 
> There's a brief discussion about past sexual assault. Nothing explicit.

Maria is perched on a chair and has her knees pulled up close to her stomach and she's watching, wide eyed. It's not the first time someone's put on a show for her. It's not even the first time Michael fucking cowboy up Guerin has put on a show for her.

That's not what makes this wild. It's Alex, who is queer as anything and maybe, possibly, one of her first teenage crushes anyway. He's supposed to be safe, he's supposed to be just about her brother. He was this skinny boy who polished his nails with her in high school. With the dark eyes and soft dark hair and cheekbones that could cut glass.

Now he's broad shouldered, strong armed and beautiful, kissing the breath out of Michael Guerin with a ferocity that rocks her. Michael just takes it beautifully, holding on hard, legs spread and arms clinging.

And how did they get here?

They'd started hours ago, when she locked the bar up with just the three of them inside and their whole mess of bitterness taking up all the space. "This can't stand," she'd said. "It isn't ok."

"I don't care," Alex had answered, glaring at them both. "You want him, Maria?" he'd pointed at Michael. "He's yours."

Michael flinched visibly and immediately started towards the exit. "I'm just going to go and-"

"No," Maria said. Yelled really. "No. No going. This is not ok... We're friends, aren't we? Aren't we all friends?"

Michael stopped and turned to look at Alex who was looking only at Maria with this expression of closed off bitterness. "Are we? Is that what we are?" Alex asked.

"I don't want to be just your friend, airman," Michael spat, as if Alex had been looking at him instead.

Alex's face twisted into a tiny half smile and he shrugged, just a motion of shoulders. He kept his eyes on Maria's. "Fine then don't be. No one is your friend, cowboy," he said.

She felt herself flinch from the sting of the words. Alex was looking at her and talking to Michael and looking at-- 

Yesterday, at the assisted living, her mother hadn't remembered who she was. She'd been too busy looking for her lost baby. Down the corridors, asking everyone if they hadn't seen her baby, she heard the crying. Mimi DeLuca's little baby was crying and by God, Mimi was going to find her and make her feel better. Maria was right there, not crying.

Maria was right here. Nothing was better.

"Stop," Maria said. "I told you. This can't stand."

"Well, it's standing right now. What's your proposal, DeLuca?" Michael asked, hand on his hip and that stupid cowboy hat perched on his head like he was advertising something. Probably sex.

Alex, who was still looking at Maria and not Michael, eyebrows up. Listening at least.

"Let's get drunk and play truth or dare," she said, because she had no actual ideas of any kind. "If that won't make us friends, we really are doomed."

Alex made a face and Michael took a step forward, away from the exit, and shrugged.

"Let's go for broke, why not strip pool? Never have I ever?" Michael asked, with a dose of showy fake innocence laid on with a trowel. 

"What is this, high school?" Alex demanded, rolling his eyes. 

"I'm not playing strip pool with you shark fuckers, I know how that ends," Maria said. They both were too good at the game. She might be up for watching them try to shark each other, but that was a whole 'nother story.

"Strip poker," Michael said. His hazel-honey eyes gleamed and his expression sharpened. 

"No, I'm the one who knows how that ends," Alex said, from between his teeth. 

"Awww, sweetheart, you don't wanna be naked for us?" Michael crooned. "Anyway, you count cards too, don't lie." Maria threw a random dishrag at his head and he ducked it and laughed at her. 

Alex just looked like he'd swallowed a lemon. "A: I'm gay. B: Not interested. And you have zero information about whether or not I count cards."

"Oh, you count cards. Anyway, I don't mind being naked for either or both of you, just putting that out there," Michael said airily. "Even if I'm not your fucking friend, I can be your friendly fuck."

"Oh fuck you," Alex said. But maybe smiled. Probably. He settled down and took a seat so that the weight was off his prosthetic leg. He faked it so well, sometimes she forgot he hadn't left Iraq whole.

"Also an ok outcome from where I sit." Michael smirked and leaned against the bar, legs sprawled just so.

"Stop antagonizing him, Guerin," Maria said, leaning forward herself. "We're going for friends here. Now tell the truth and shame the devil-- do you count cards, Alex Manes?"

Alex made a face of absolute disgust. "Who, me?"

"So that's a yes?" Maria pressed.

Michael leaned back and whistled when Alex just shook his head. "So, Maria is going to be truly great at strip poker too, I can tell. That might be a draw, better not to go there." 

"Right," Maria said. "Never have I ever?"

"I'm not playing anything with you assholes," Alex muttered and shook his head.

Suddenly, so fast it felt like it slammed in out of nowhere, Michael's lazy amusement sparked into something else, and he was out of his sprawl and on his feet. Narrow eyed, hands balled up, blink of an eye. "Right, we wronged you terribly, Maria and me. I forgot, you get to throw me away, walk away, then change your mind and expect me to crawl right after you as many times as you need me to and I have to wait around while you get your act together. And DeLuca has to follow your commands too even though she's not involved."

Alex's eyes went a little wider and his hands balled up too. And this was not Maria's goal. "It wasn't like that," Alex said, at least instead of another insult.

Michael's eyes were so narrow. His hands were clenched. His hands, his beautiful hands. There was something else going on there…. 

"The way I see it, it was exactly like that. I'm allowed to be happy, Alex, even if you don't wanna make me happy."

"And if you're so happy, why the hell am I here?" Alex shouted back.

Maria covered her ears. "I'm not happy, you assholes. Me ok? I'm not dating him, Alex? It was a fucking fling. I want to be friends."

"He doesn't, Maria," Michael said, soft and tired. "Will you listen to him? He doesn't want to be friends."

"That's not what I meant,'' Alex said, softer himself. He put this hand over his face and scrubbed. "I do want to be your friend, Maria. I'm sorry."

"Ok, great. Awesome. We're going to be friends. I'll start," Maria said calmly. "Never have I ever seen the future." She took a large swallow of beer. 

Michael rolled his eyes. "You can just drink if you wanna drink. We don't need to play a game. I never smoked a joint."

They all drank up.

"Never have I ever screwed two people at the same time in a parking lot," Maria said, looking firmly at Michael who smiled and drank. Alex raised both eyebrows. She grinned and said, "ok, one person." They all drank for that one.

"Never had sex with a man," Alex said and they downed another round.

"Never stole from someone who really deserved it." Michael said and laughed when when Alex demanded he define deserved. "Your dad deserved it."

"Haven't stolen from him, specifically, but I'll drink to that," Maria said.

A few more rounds and the world was starting to get fuzzy.

"Never had sex with a woman." They all drank on that one, Michael, grinning, Maria with a shrug and Alex with a hard edged glare, daring them to say anything.

"Really?" Michael asked, smirking at him, taking the implied dare head on. "Any port in the storm army buddy fumbling? Truth or dare and that was the dare?" 

Alex rolled his eyes and raised his palms. "More like reparative therapy. My dad locked me in a room with a hooker and she brought little blue pills. I came. They were both disappointed I was still queer afterwards, but I came. Does that count?"

"No, actually it doesn’t. That sounds pretty rapey," Maria muttered.

Alex made a face and glared at her. "That's not funny."

"Huh, no she's right," Michael said. "And I had a meth head foster parents that kept dragging me into bed with them so I know rapey. I'd call it rapey."

"That's awful," Alex turned his head to glare at Michael and hissed. “It wasn’t like that.”

Michael just shrugged and looked right back at Alex, something unexpectedly calm and steady under the challenge in his stare. "Yeah. Awfully rapey. I'm just saying, I’m with Maria. Doesn’t count."

Maria nodded. "Worst I had was Chad grabby hands. More like sexual assault. Non consensual gropery. Yours is outright rapey."

Alex and Michael exchanged looks that were a little horrible. "Which Chad is this now?" Michael said. "Where can we meet this guy?"

She made a face and threw back a drink. "You can't, stop that. We're talking about Alex's non-consenting sex with a hooker."

"No, we're not," Alex said. "Do you want to talk about Michael's foster parents?"

"I wish I could end him for you," Michael said, suddenly. "I know you don't want that."

"You've never killed anyone in your life, Mr. Alleged Menace," Alex replied, without much inflection, with the steadiness of someone who had. Iraq, right.

"I could start now," Michael said, just as cooly. 

"Yeah, I'm not making you into a killer, not for my sake." Alex sighed and tipped his head back. "Honestly, Guerin, I wish I could kill him for you, instead of just getting rid of him. He was a dick to me, but I'm not-- I'm still standing. Whatever body parts I have that are not intact are not on him, you know?"

"Me too," Michael said, blinking a little. "I'm fine, Alex. All body parts intact." 

"Your hand, what he did to your hand and your fami--" Alex said, and then stopped. Stared. Maria stared too. Stared at Michael Guerin's beautiful, unmangled, smooth skinned hand. And she'd known that-- she knew-- he'd come in that day with it like that. Fixed like it was never broken. "When-- how?"

And Michael smiled at him, sweet as anything, and held up his hand full of working fingers, the fingers that Jesse Manes had smashed ten years ago when Michael put his body between his and his son's, in a story Maria had only ever heard the outlines of. And Alex looked so pale and he reached out with a hand that was shaking, to touch skin.

"Jesus," he whispered fervently. "Guerin-- Michael-- your hand." Maria had never even really seen them touch before, not really. Michael was hot stuff, sex on legs, and Alex was a great looking guy and always had been even when he was deep into his emo-punk piercing phase, so she figured it would be a view. 

This wasn't a view, it was a stomach dropping exhale, Alex, pushing into Michael's space, grabbing Michael's miraculously healed hand and their fingers weaving together. 

"Max Evan's last stand, like it or not," Michael whispered, folding his hand around Alex's. "He wanted me to be able to move forward."

And Maria had the sense that they had literally forgotten she was there. It wasn't even that they were talking in code, it was like some other set of references that were supposed to make sense, just didn't.

And then it did.

"Lois Lane did not have to deal with this shit," Alex proclaimed balefully. "I want an alien lover like that instead."

"What do alien lovers have to do with anything?" Maria asked, finally, shaking her head. "Just because this is Roswell and we have a theme here doesn't mean…" or you know, it did?

Alex stopped. Looked at her. At Michael. Who was still holding Alex's hand. Frowned. "Wait. What the fuck? You didn't tell her?"

Maria had this swooping, sick feeling that's not the booze. More like she just got launched from a rollercoaster and her stomach didn't come with. 

Alex dropped Michael's hand like it was on fire and slipped over to her side. "Maria, shit, you knew this?"

She said, very carefully. "Ok, are we on to the unfunny jokes part of the evening?"

Michael and Alex exchanged glares over her shoulder. "Fine," Michael said and turned to look at her. 

She looked at him. He looked completely himself, curly haired, tawny and hazel eyed and stubbled like a too late night. She'd fucked him. He did not have a tentacle dick, ok? She'd fucked him. And now he said, "Fine. Maria. I'm literally ET. I'm not kidding. This is not a drill. I was hatched out of a pod after crash landing from another planet."

She thought for a moment. A lot of things made sense and she didn't really want to think any more. "Ok. Let's say I believe you. I need more drinks," she said.

So they had another round, neat shots with a chaser.

The silence stretched.

"Like I said, Lois Lane did not have to put up with this shit," Alex said mournfully. 

Michael smiled reassuringly at Maria. "Well, Superman could also fly. And had x-ray vision and laser eyes. I just move shit with my brain. I don't even have a dick of steel."

"Meh. Dick of steel is overrated. Unless it vibrates." Maria took a pull from her beer chaser and frowned. So much to reevaluate. "Does it vibrate? Alex, does it vibrate? I don't remember it vibrating but I wasn't that sober when I took it for a ride."

"No one told me if it does," Alex muttered and stared at nothing in particular. "I missed out."

Michael thought about that for a second, way too seriously. "I haven't tried that, but I feel like if it was going to happen it would have by accident before now. I could probably make your vibrator vibrate if it runs out of batteries though?"

"Useful, it's true, but not the same," Maria said. 

"Speak for yourself. About the useful part." Alex sighed. "No, really, what the fuck? Why did it have to be you, Guerin?"

Michael looked away. "I dunno, just unlucky all around. Why don't you just run away so we don't have to worry about it anymore, Manes?"

"You know what, no. I dare you to kiss Maria," Alex said, cool as anything, eyes snapping up and looking at Michael again.

Michael's lips curved and his eyebrows rose. "Thought we were playing I never. But sure if that's what you want."

"It's what you want," Alex said, with some level of hardnosed certainty that Maria wasn't sure he could back up.

Michael's lips curled down. "I want to kiss you both. Did I not make that clear? You're the one who's pissed about it, so why do you want to watch?"

"Stop. I dare you to kiss us both, then," Maria said, light and easy. And she looked at Alex, dead on, steady, "I'm your friend, and I'm a person, not Michael Guerin's consolation prize for not getting you."

And before Alex could say a word, Michael said, "you're beautiful, Maria DeLuca," and he kissed her. Hard and sweet and tender, the plush warmth of his boozy mouth. The curl of his unbroken hands on the back of her neck.

She made a soft sound. She'd expected it to be friendly, sweet, the kiss of a man who was in love with someone else, in love with Alex Manes. But it was Guerin, and he kissed her like she mattered even when nothing else about him said she did.

Alex was staring, open mouthed and flush faced, dark eyes a little wet in the bar lights.

"Why do you want me at all?" he asked, so soft. Not even bitter right then, drunk and young and lost.

And Michael turned to look at him, just as soft, just as tired. "Oh, Alex, damnit, sweetheart, you-- it's always been you. Ten years and it's just you."

"You just kissed Maria?" Alex said, laughing a little like he hadn't just demanded that they kiss each other. 

Michael rolled his eyes and grinned reassuringly at Maria. "She doesn't own me, she just likes me. It's not the same."

"I wouldn't want to own you, asshole," Maria said, because she was here damnit. Michael just kept grinning at her, white teethed and brilliant. Like he'd just solved everything and everything was now going to be ok.

She didn't get how but maybe it would be.

Alex made a face and muttered something under his breath that sounded like, "well, I do want to."

"I mean... you do?" Michael turned and said, sounding confused about it again. "I told you that? You just have to go ahead and stop leaving me every time you freak out?"

"Come on, cowboy, kiss him already," Maria hissed. 

So Michael cowboy up Guerin did just that, and there was Maria, perched on a chair, her belly alight with a warm longing.

Then Alex was kissing back, hard, demanding. The strength of his body suddenly obvious.

She thought about slipping away, upstairs, to bed, but she was here damnit.

And Alex turned to look at her, flushed again, but now starry eyed and kissed stupid. Michael's hands still on him. "Ok. I've never had a threesome with a woman." He laughed. "I mean, literally. I haven't."

"Well, you are gay, so…" Maria said, shaking her head, all warm and dizzy and smiling back.

He nodded firmly. "I am. And Micheal is an alien, so that's weird. And we're going to work it out. Come here."

And Michael laughed and reeled her in by the hand and his body was so warm and human.

She came over there, let their arms curl around her, warm and strong and present. Finding her and keeping her right where she was.

It was going to be worth it, however long this ride lasted.

**Author's Note:**

> I love and appreciate feedback of all sorts! <3
> 
> You can also find me as ninhursag at dreamwidth https://ninhursag.dreamwidth.org/


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